A general wireless communication system provides one or more shared resources to multiple users. For example, the wireless communication system may employ a variety of multiple access schemes, such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), and frequency division multiple access (FDMA).
Generally, a base station schedules wireless resources. The wireless resources are uplink resources in an uplink and downlink resources in a downlink. In the downlink, the base station informs a user equipment of downlink resources allocated to a data stream and the user equipment receives the data stream through the downlink resources. In the uplink, the base station informs the user equipment of uplink resources allocated to a data stream and the user equipment transmits the data stream through the uplink resources.
The amount of the wireless resources allocated varies according to the amount of data streams to be transmitted, a channel state, or quality of service (QoS). The more the amount of data streams is, the more wireless resources must be allocated. However, since the amount of wireless resources is limited, it is necessary to efficiently allocate the wireless resources.
Information as to allocation of the wireless resources must repeatedly be provided to the user equipment, because the user equipment must know information as to allocation of wireless resources in an uplink or downlink to receive data streams. The information as to wireless resource allocation indicates a control signal and is transmitted to the user equipment through a dedicated control channel or a common control channel. The dedicated control channel refers to a control channel for a specific user equipment and the common control channel refers to a control channel for all user equipments within an application region.
When data is transmitted through the common control channel or the dedicated control channel in every transmission frame, system overhead is increased by an excessive MAP header. Therefore, it is necessary to increase a transmission period of the common control channel. Moreover, since a user equipment which does not have to transmit and receive data must decode the dedicated control channel and data in all unnecessary data regions, the user equipment suffers power loss. A system having a long transmission frame increases a feedback delay more than a system having a short transmission frame. Such a feedback delay may cause degradation of link adaptability performance.